


A Regurgitative Reaction to Mistruthin'

by Mel_Malone



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Lila Rossi Lies, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mel_Malone/pseuds/Mel_Malone
Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng hated lying. She hated it so much, in fact, that she physically could not stand it. So, Lila gets a little bit in over her head when she thinks she'll be able to get away with increasingly serious fabrications.(Inspired by the character of Marta from Knives Out. Slightly crack.)
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tom Dupain, Sabine Cheng & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Sabine Cheng/Tom Dupain
Comments: 16
Kudos: 321





	A Regurgitative Reaction to Mistruthin'

**Author's Note:**

> So, as the summary said, this story was inspired by Marta from Knives Out. Her reaction to when she lies is such a unique quirk that she has immediately become one of my favorite characters. You don't need to watch that movie to understand this because it gets explained here. This is just an exploration of how Marinette could take advantage of that quirk in the episode "Ladybug."

Marinette Dupain-Cheng hated lying. 

When Marinette was a little girl, one of her teachers assigned a diorama project about a book they were reading. Marinette worked hard on her diorama all that week, and when it was time to bring it to school, Chloé Bourgeois took one look at the diorama and snatched it up before stepping on it until it was barely recognizable. Marinette tried telling the teacher, but Chloé lied and said that she hadn't done anything to the project and the only reason Marinette was accusing her was because Marinette was jealous of her. 

When she heard that lie, Marinette was so scared, upset, and disgusted that she puked. 

Out of sympathy, her teacher gave her another week to redo the diorama, but Chloé had never suffered punishment for her lies. It was then that Marinette decided for good that lying was the worst and most revolting thing a person could do. 

Unfortunately, this incident was traumatic enough that it severely affected Marinette physically. Any time she lied or she watched someone else lie, she got physically ill and threw up again. Around the third time this happened, her parents took her to the doctor. After all, Marinette was already a skinny girl, and it would be unhealthy for her to keep throwing up like this. From her general practitioner, she went to a psychologist and then a therapist. Eventually, she was able to hold her lunch whenever someone else lied, but she still couldn't maintain control when she herself lied. Her parents figured that this was great progress, and they didn't want to push Marinette too hard since she didn't seem to want to lie either way. So, her appointments ended there with very few people knowing the truth. 

By the time she got to collége, she believed no one knew about her reaction to lying. After all, she'd been an outstandingly honest girl after the initial incident with Chloé lying about her, so there was no opportunity for anyone to find out what happened when she lied. 

So, it was really a struggle to keep the secret that she was Ladybug. Questions about her whereabouts during akuma attacks were always dodged or as truthfully answered as possible. She'd say she ran towards the akuma attack because she was worried about Chat Noir, or that she felt she needed to help some citizens find a place to hide. Even if she hated keeping this secret, she knew protecting Paris was even more of a priority than her need to tell the truth. 

But one thing she could not abide was when Lila Rossi entered her class and claimed to be Ladybug's best friend. That was a dangerous kind of lie, so Marinette tried to convince Alya that Lila was lying, but no one listened. Then Adrien had pulled her aside and said that Lila's lies weren't hurting anyone. It would be fine if they were the only ones who knew. 

She was so disgusted with his complicity that she ran for the nearest bathroom and threw up. 

Regardless, she stayed quiet about Lila, more out of fear of backlash from the class than out of agreement with Adrien. But then Lila tried targeting Marinette, and that was the biggest possible mistake she could have made. 

"Marinette," Mademoiselle Bustier said with a surprisingly cold voice when Marinette was walking into class, "I'm going to have to ask you to open your bag."

"What?"

Crossing her arms, Mademoiselle Bustier narrowed her eyes. "I was informed in an anonymous note that someone cheated on yesterday's exam and stole the answer sheet. Open your bag."

Icy fear creeped into Marinette's spine, and she stiffly dropped her bag onto the teacher's desk before zipping it open and letting Mademoiselle Bustier rifle through it. The rest of the class looked just as confused as she did, like none of them had to go through this process. Did Mademoiselle Bustier only suspect Marinette? Why?

But then Marinette noticed the only person who didn't look confused: Lila. She smugly smiled at Marinette when Mademoiselle Bustier took out a paper from Marinette's bag and turned back with a disappointed frown. 

"I'm honestly very surprised that you did this, Marinette," Mademoiselle Bustier remarked. 

Trying to defend herself, Marinette insisted, "But I didn't! I stayed up all week to study for yesterday's test. Whoever told you that I stole the answers must have been lying. I didn't even open my bag after school, so they could have snuck it in there anytime yesterday."

Alya stood up. "Mademoiselle, you know Marinette always gets high scores on your tests. Why would she suddenly decide to cheat on this one?"

The rest of the class broke into a clamor of similar remarks, broken through only by Lila calling out, "If anything, the fact that Marinette usually does so well is what makes this so disappointing."

As silence followed that statement, Marinette rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't be surprised if you were the person who wrote that note and stole the answers."

"Marinette," Mademoiselle Bustier broke in, "Lila couldn't have stolen the answers because she had the worst grade on the exam."

"Maybe she flunked it on purpose. What matters is that I definitely didn't do it!"

Mademoiselle Bustier looked between the two girls before sighing. "Lila, Marinette, go to Monsieur Damocles' office to wait for us to sort this out."

Begrudgingly, Marinette left the classroom with Lila at her side, the brunette looking joyous as ever. 

Lila chirped, "I told you I'd make your life unbearable. You really should have just gone along with whatever I said."

Just the thought of being complicit in those lies made Marinette feel queasy. "Yeah, right. Bustier doesn't even really seem like she believes that I stole those test answers, so you're not doing that great a job." She stopped at the door to Monsieur Damocles' office, noticing that Lila was going down the stairs. "What are you doing?"

"You'll see." She laid herself down on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. "Ready?" Then she cried out in pain. "Ow, ow, ow! Marinette pushed me down the stairs!"

Monsieur Damocles burst out of his office and narrowed his eyes at Marinette. "What happened here?"

Marinette couldn't speak. She was too busy trying not to retch. This was even worse than the diorama incident with Chloé. All these lies of Lila's kept building up, and the dazzling clarity of how easily a lie could topple someone's entire life hit Marinette. She kept her hand glued to her mouth while she tried to get her composure back.

Before she knew it, she was sitting in the principal's office with her parents beside her and Lila in the other chair, one of her knees wrapped up. 

"Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng, I can't believe what you've done here today," Monsieur Damocles began.

Teary-eyed, Lila said, "I don't know why Marinette hates me so much! All I've ever done is try to be her friend, and any time I try to be nice, she just calls me a liar and tries to turn everyone against me. It just makes me feel so defeated, like there's no point in going on because Marinette's just going to be there to tear me down!"

"Those are all lies!" Marinette interjected, sitting forward. Her mother, wary of her daughter's revulsion towards dishonesty, laid a hand on Marinette's shoulder to gently pull her back. 

Monsieur Damocles spared Marinette a glance of disapproval before telling Lila to carry on. 

"She's always trapping me in the hallways or bathrooms and telling me how she's going to make me suffer, and she even took my grandmother's necklace with a fox-tail pendant."

"Took?" Monsieur Damocles asked, raising an eyebrow at Marinette. "As in stole?"

Marinette seethed, covering her mouth again out of precaution that she might throw up directly onto Monsieur Damocles' desk. Her mother spoke up, "Monsieur, this girl has no evidence. If there's anything we know about our daughter, she's no thief or bully. Most especially, she knows when someone's lying, and she hates it with a passion. Trust me when I say that Marinette has nothing but honesty and good intentions, and if she says she's never hurt or stolen from Lila, then she hasn't."

"Oh, but I can prove that Mari did steal my necklace!" Lila said, smiling viciously.

And so, that was how Marinette found herself walking into the locker room, gritting her teeth as she avoided her classmates' eyes. Monsieur Damocles, Mademoiselle Bustier, and her parents stood behind her, with Lila's knee apparently miraculously recovered due to her being able to walk without a limp.

"Open your locker," Monsieur Damocles demanded. 

So, she did. Out fell a white box that had clearly been thrown in through the vent at the top of the locker, but it was no less incriminating as Lila fell to her knees and cried out for her grandmother's necklace. 

Marinette couldn't hold back anymore. Her fury welled up inside her as Monsieur Damocles yelled at her and told her she was expelled, and she almost felt helpless. 

Almost. 

But then she gritted her teeth and looked up at Monsieur Damocles with a straight face. "Monsieur, let me show you how much I hate lying. The truth is---" she took a deep breath in to prepare herself--- "Lila's right about everything. I cheated on the test, I pushed her down the stairs, I stole this necklace, and I did everything else she said."

Noting the look on her daughter's face, Sabine Cheng opened her purse to take out the wipes she always carried with her while everyone else looked at Marinette in shock.

Lila took this opportunity to beam, and she practically sang, "See, everyone? Marinette admitted that I'm---"

Marinette bent over, upchucking her breakfast straight onto Lila's shoes. The Italian girl's smile fell into a mask of horror, and all of Marinette's classmates jumped back with near-simultaneous groans. 

"And that is what happens when I lie," Marinette sighed, reaching for the wipe her mother held out for her. 

Chloé, who didn't trust Lila from the moment the brunette claimed to be Ladybug's best friend, reluctantly admitted, "It's true. Marinette's always gotten sick whenever she lies, and sometimes even when someone else does. That's why I stopped bothering her so much--- I just got too grossed out every time she knew I was lying."

"She can probably just puke whenever she wants," Lila scoffed.

"Oh, yeah, because I'm totally going to waste a whole breakfast on you." Marinette shuddered before gagging again. She wasn't very safe with even being sarcastic. 

Sabine turned to Monsieur Damocles. "We would have put it on Marinette's medical record for the school if it were ever relevant that she physically can't handle lying. She's been to psychologists and therapists for her own health, but this is always the reaction. My daughter cannot be the one in the wrong, because every time she denied doing all these things, she would have gotten sick again and again. As you can see, the only time she did was when she agreed with everything, so she's obviously been telling the truth this entire time."

Monsieur Damocles looked entirely uncomfortable and unsure about the situation from the moment Marinette threw up. He finally shook his head wearily and said, "Yes, I'm afraid I'll have to agree with you, Madame Cheng. Apologies, Marinette. You're not expelled. Mademoiselle Rossi, however, we're going to have to call your mother to have a discussion about these inflammatory remarks of yours. Clearly, you have to learn that your words and actions have consequences."

Her face turning red, Lila whipped around and asked, "But what about my shoes! Look at them!"

A few amused smirks were shared by Chloé, Sabrina, and Alix as Monsieur Damocles glanced at Lila on his way out of the locker room and dismissively said, "We'll see if you can wear something out of the Lost and Found. Now, come along. I have to call the custodian."

Marinette nervously stepped around the small puddle of her tossed breakfast after closing her locker again. She was going to speak to her parents, but Mademoiselle Bustier immediately apologized for accusing Marinette of stealing the test answers.

"It's okay, Mademoiselle," Marinette shrugged. "You did the best you could with the information you had."

Trying for a smile, Mademoiselle squeezed Marinette's shoulder gently before heading back to her classroom, the other students following her. Adrien stayed behind, having wandered in during the initial commotion. He looked at Marinette strangely, like she was a wounded dog, and Marinette furrowed her brows at him before turning to her parents. 

"Thank you guys for supporting me," she chimed. Then, because she was still angry at Adrien for his words, she added, "Unlike some people, you realized how much I can't stand lies. How much they hurt me."

As her parents hugged her and said they'd take her out of school early to make sure she was okay, Adrien watched and realized the major mistake he'd made. 

And he wondered what he could do to make up for it.


End file.
